74
THE YPRES TIMES
belong to?" Scraping the condensed milk away with a piece of twig, he spelled
out the address. The rightful owner came forward and claimed it. "There's
nuthin' in it," smiled Fatty. Expect ye'll find it mair or less at the bottom o'
the bag."
The packages were now soon handed out, and the meeting melted away, leaving
one disgruntled member searching amidst the sticky mess at the bottom of the bag.
Those having parcels raced off to their dug-out, where, by the light of a spluttering
candle they would live again through the delights of emptying the Christmas
stocking. Those unlucky ones, not having parcels, also slid away, not absolutely
without hope, for would they not receive some measure of comfort in silently
A GLIMPSE OF SCOTTISH WOOD IN 1915.
A cheery machine-gun group of the Liverpool Scottish.
watching the rending of paper, and the gradually growing pile of tins and packets
containing butter, sardines, milk, café-au-lait, soup, cakes, chocolates, cigarettes,
and woollen socks or cardigans, and now and then a tin of insect pomade
The wood now looked like a little town seen from a railway train at night.
Little shafts of light blinking through the holes and splits in the sacking which
formed the fronts of the dug-outs, while from within, there were sounds of discovery
and badinage. Outside, all was silent. The ghostly flares from the front line
continually relit the black stems of many trees, and a spent bullet, sighing
throughout its weary way, caught a tree a resounding thwack.
A Morning in May.
The sun was stealing up beyond the German lines, throwing a silvery radiance
over the young leaves now clothing the spreading fretwork of branches with a
wondrous green. Here and there, the sky, a beautiful silvery-blue, peeped through
